


AZΩת

by DatBisa



Category: Senki Zesshou Symphogear
Genre: Celtic Mythology & Folklore, Gen, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Mythology - Freeform, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Sumerian Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2019-11-19 12:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18136037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DatBisa/pseuds/DatBisa
Summary: Throughout history, many civilizations have risen and fallen. Most prominently this happened during the Bronze Age Collapse. Take a deep dive into how the various pre-historic super-civilizations experienced their last day, when the Curse of Balal was cast.





	1. Prologue

For modern human civilization it seems like acquiring the kinds of power required to break out of the constraints of current technologies is impossible without conflict. This has been the case throughout history and is possibly even the reason why we have a split between history and prehistory.

The Bronze Age Collapse was a massive event that caused almost all now prehistoric civilizations to get wiped from the face of earth in an incredibly short time. We still don’t know what caused this, but a large scale war or invasion from a foreign force is one of the most prevalent theories.

One of the more smiled at theories is that early humanity in the middle-east acquired a status relatively akin to that of a super-civilization and promptly self-destructed.  
Of course, aside from a few edge-cases of technology that’s way far ahead of its time, no proof for this exists and these theories are, as mentioned, generally laughed at.

However, the naysayers always seem to ignore one core point. Obviously this is due to the fact that it’s quite unscientific, but what if these early human societies, through their hundreds, if not thousands of years of continued existence acquired the status of a spiritual super-civilization, instead of a technological one?

Obviously, it can be argued that this simply doesn’t apply to our reality due to the lack of scientific proof for anything such as spiritual powers, but yet it’s an exciting thing to hypothesize about.  
So, let’s make ourselves a copy of history. This time around let us make sure that our prehistoric civilizations have gained access to spiritual powers of deities.

* * *

In our version of history, the Fertile Crescent had already survived many calamities. The joint force of a humanity united, wielding powers of the Gods defied all odds and with no inner conflict humanity kept expanding in everlasting peace, for centuries past the point of collapse in our reality.

As an example: What we know today as the Rosetta Stone was created not to create understanding between opposing nations, but so that all humans speaking the universal language, no matter where from, could read the texts of other empires with ease.

Gods often bestowed the most spiritually adept warriors of an army with a weapon known as an Artifact, truly legendary weapons, often those of the gods themselves. Able to output immeasurable amounts of power, these often turned the tides of entire wars back and forth multiple times over the time of even a single skirmish.

However, in the absence of a need for conflict, wars were held not as contests of power, but as games. While functionally identical with our understanding of a war, there was no hostility between empires at war.  
Even with hundreds or thousands of casualties, these were a mere friendly comparison of spiritual powers between empires, and the fallen warriors would regularly go down in legend.

These times of prosper however would soon come to an end.  
Humanity had become comfortable with its’ immense powers and would soon start getting greedy for more.  
After all this work of setting up super-civilizations in our version of prehistory, the Bronze Age Collapse was not as avoidable as we thought it was.


	2. The Tower to Babel

The high priestess to Etemenanki found herself in a gap between space and time, atop a spire of granite. Not knowing for what, she was profusely apologizing to Marduk, deity of the Babylonian city-state. Feeling the power of her lover pressuring her from all sides in the purple whirl of nothingness, she began feeling pain akin to no other.  
Suddenly the spire began to shake, as she woke up from her vision.

A courier from the palace had made his way into her villa, there to deliver the message that Nebuchadnezzar’s gargantuan construction project had finally concluded, and that she was required at its location in the hanging gardens immediately.  
The emperor had built another ziggurat, one to put all the previous ones to shame, even Etemennigur and Etemenanki itself.

The priestess had to see this with her own eyes. There was no way that a ziggurat, of all buildings, of such size could have been built within the few months that the project had been underway for.  
As she stepped outside, she was met with a sight that had become familiar over the last half of the year. it was dark as night. A black spire reaching past the clouds, piercing the blue skies and eclipsing the sun, throwing a shadow that reached past the horizon, far into the night. The scaffolding around the tower had dropped and revealed the reason why she had been able to feel fluctuations in the divine powers around the city lately.

The courier notified her, according to Nebuchadnezzar, this ziggurat would allow her to be closer to the gods during her prayers than ever before. That it will allow her to directly tap into Marduk’s powers without further action necessary.  
In shock, the priestess quickly put on her ceremonial gown and rushed to the hanging gardens. What was the emperor thinking, building a temple of this scale with such heretical intention?

As she arrived at the Tower’s location, she noticed that the growths where abnormally lush, and that a multitude of new flora had begun growing in the Gardens’ beds. Flowers and herbs giving off a pungent yet pleasant scent and divine light, illuminating the Tower’s artificial night through the power the ziggurat had already begun siphoning.

The closer she got to the base of the Tower, the harder it became to move through the crowd of passersby, stopped in their tracks, unable to comprehend the sheer size of the finished construct.  
She could feel the divine power emanate from the Tower like she was tripping over the roots of a conifer.

As the priestess reached the gates, she was greeted by the emperor himself. Boasting about the gargantuan success his project already had in the few hours since its unveiling, and how grateful he was that the priestess accepted this effective transfer of her workspace.  
She was boiling with rage. Not only was Nebuchadnezzar greedily tapping into the power of the gods without their consent or any kind of worship. The Tower was probably also high enough to reach into the gods’ realm, infracting on their territory.

Calmly but firmly, the priestess replied, how horribly heretic this act was, how it will doom humanity to abandon from the deities, how their eden-like world will come to an end by the hands of those who gave them power, and those they betrayed by building this monstrous temple.  
She would however try to bargain. She wasn’t the head priestess to the second largest city state without reason. Her connection to the gods was undeniably strong since the day she was born, and her dedication to Marduk was second to none.

From her early childhood on she would visit Etemenanki on the daily, praying at the base of the mighty fortifications of the temple, unable to reach the altar at the top. There was no conceivable reasoning for this act of transgression, but the priestess had achieved the impossible before.

The emperor was a warmonger. No one but him saw wars as more than a mere game. Nebuchadnezzar however saw conflict and opportunity. He’d even come up with a language second to the one spoken globally to teach his troops for war, and he would usually instruct his generals to make liberal use of the Seal of Solomon, the Artifact Marduk bestowed upon his armies, which the emperor in turn had worked into a short staff for easy use in combat. Under its control the Abyssal Chambers of the Nether Worlds would become Babylon’s Treasury in combat, tapping into the unending supply of demons with full control of the summoned infernal beasts.

All of these were inexcusable acts of heresy, but the head priestess had managed to calm the deities every time, and she hoped that today would be the same.

She turned away from the power hungry emperor, stepped through the gates and felt a sharp bolt of divine energy surge through her body. The amount of power accumulated within the tower itself was likely already more than what Marduk had granted the empire over the time it has existed, and he possibly hadn’t even noticed yet.

Climbing the steep staircase of the Tower, hundreds of steps following one another, the priestess occasionally caught a glimpse of the outside. Even hours after she begun climbing, the Sun had not moved from it’s point on the firmament, low over the Babylonian horizon, the shadow cast by the Tower hadn’t changed, and birds were hovering without movement, as if frozen in mid air.

Thousands of steps, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions, the Sun didn’t rise, birds would stay still in the air, she developed no hunger or thirst, and her limbs still wouldn’t hurt and feel like they could carry her another full set of stairs up to the ziggurat’s peak.  
After what seemed like days worth of climbing the tower, feeling a higher density of divine power with every step, she finally reached a level akin to a lookout platform.

Looking around, she found herself just on the edge of the firmament. Looking up, she could clearly see the dome-like structure limiting humans to Earth and could easily make out the small holes within it that would turn into stars at night.  
The Sun had started making its way toward her. While still having barely moved from its position from when she entered the spire, it definitely had begun moving again, embarking on its daily travel across the firmament.  
Below her, a thin sheet of stringy clouds traveled overhead the city, originating all the way from the Caspian Sea and getting thicker around the Tigris River.  
Her view however reached far further, way beyond the terrain known to man. Lands entirely untouched by both humanity’s brilliance and greed.

Aware of her mission however, the Priestess resumed her climb. She was uncertain how, but the Emperor managed to break through the firmament and continue construction within the Archaeus. It was only now that she realized how purely insane this feat was. The only barrier keeping humanity within their mortal realm, endlessly densely packed with AZΩת, pure spirit, energy and life force, designed to be impenetrable by any physical means, only allowing that which is itself to pass.

It’s the reason there hasn’t been any direct physical contact between humans and deities, not to mention any other realms that may exist, since they days of creation passed.  
Yet, Nebuchadnezzar simply built a Ziggurat reaching straight into the Archaeus for likely not even God knows how far.

Resuming her climb, the step the Priestess crossed past the firmament into the Archaeus, she felt another bolt of divine energy surge through her, bringing her down to her knees for a couple of minutes. By now, the gods must have realized humanity’s infraction on the absolute territory and were breaking ties with their civilisations all across the globe.

Biting through the pain caused by the swirls of black and crimson surrounding her, she endured on her endless way up the spire. Slowly the spiral staircase would get more narrow and steep, shedding its walls and ornate brick construction in return for rough-hewn granite steps.

After what felt like many months worth of ascension she finally begun to see an end to her journey. The core that the staircase was coiling around became more massive and rectangular. Looking up, she could see the end of the Tower, a platform, part of the massive piece of granite she had been climbing, rising up against a faint, sky blue shimmer within the divine void of the Archaeus.

Finishing her last steps, empowered by the energy surrounding her, the high priestess to the Tower of Babel began her usual desperate chants to Marduk.  
Not one full aria later, she felt her lover’s words filling her mind, clearer than ever before.

“I see you have tempted your empire’s fate once more.  
“I know you didn’t want this.   
“You want your city to prosper.   
“To find respite for your human sins within a connection to the gods."

Marduk was right. As heretical as the act of constructing this tower was, she can’t say she didn’t see potential.

“You have seen what access to an infinite amount of AZΩת can achieve  
“But ask yourself this.  
“You want to use this construct’s power to advance humanity as a whole.  
“But does your emperor?”

The priestess was shocked.  
Heretical as his acts and how much of a warmonger he may be, it never crossed her mind that Nebuchadnezzar would use the power granted by the Tower for his militant schemes.  
All the benign effects of the Tower she had witnessed so far were either natural or could easily be turned into effective combat methods.

The priestess begann apologizing profoundly. How no virtuous deed could make up for even her act of prespas, let alone the Ziggurat itself.  
Excuse after excuse, prayer after prayer and hymn after hymn, the priestess lost all her grace and pride. Reduced to a wreck of sorrow and remorse, she bowed over at the peak of the platform.

“Enough!”

The high priestess snapped out of her breakdown. She had just heard Marduk’s voice loud and clear for the first time.

“I am aware of your anquish."  
“We all are”

She heard another voice.

“We are willing to forgive you alone.”

With each sentence, she heard another god.

“However, as compensation for your deeds, you must become a vessel for our judgement."  
“Humanity will live on without you."  
“Your soul and memories will be passed down through your descendants, awoken by the divine catalysts that humans possess.”

Put in a trance by a mix of the scale of the situation, the constant influence of AZΩת around her and her infatuation with Marduk, she agreed, as the gods instructed her to a last prayer.

Unaware of the words she spoke she followed the divine choir for a short poem.  
The additional voices faded with each word until once more only Marduk was left, finishing the ballad with the priestess.

Suddendly, she was blinded by a strike of lightning. Regaining sight, she panicked, as the priestess herself was enveloped in a divine blue light, feeding off the AZΩת surrounding her. Looking down from her platform, she noticed the Tower slowly crumbling beneath her feet.

She screamed from the top of her lungs, demanding an explanation on what and how this was happening.

Marduk calmly stated:  
“You have just brought the end upon the world as you know it.   
“Do not fear.   
“Your empire may not, but humanity will survive and thrive.”

In shock, she fell to her feet again. How had she brought the end?

  
“From this day, humanity shall live in conflict, with a lack of understanding.  
“Not even we gods could have shattered them like this.  
“You however, right within the Archaeus, with unprecedented amounts of AZΩת at even just your fingertips, can achieve the power required.  
“I know you feel betrayed right now.”

Standing up, as she felt the Tower’s collapse catching up to her, she reached out towards the faint blue shimmer above her.  
As the granite broke away beneath her feet, falling back towards the mortal realm, Marduk spoke his last ever words to her, in what shall be the final contact between gods and humanity:

  
“I’m sorry.”

* * *

It felt like an eternity passed, while the priestess was falling. Back towards the reality she was banished from. She was slowly losing her sense of life, even in this place consisting of life force.

Eventually, the high priestess of what used to be Babylon saw a familiar rock on the edge of the firmament closing in.  
As she touched down on the moon, she felt her soul leave her body and enter the rocky depths below her point of impact. She was a mere puppet to the gods, and they were using her to restructure the insides of the moon as to uphold the new order they had established.

With this as her last memory passed down to her descendants, she breathed out her last sliver of life, as the AZΩת took her in, for eternal, life-less sentience, forever damned to observe the struggle of a humanity shattered.

* * *

For on that fateful day, in the Ziggurat by the eden-like gardens of Babylon,  
the cursed final ballad was sung.  
For on that fateful day, in the Ziggurat by the eden-like gardens of Babylon,  
Finé’s curse was cast. 


	3. The Arm of Flesh and Silver

The Namesake, high druid to Doirerua, awoke in a cold sweat. It was the evening on which he would embark to Lia Fail to return the village's sacred chest to the children of the Danu. Getting a grasp on his surroundings, the Namesake noticed he was beset by his family looking on him in horror. With a puzzled look on his elder face he attempted to leave his quarters only to observe his right arm having withered away in his sleep. Muttering to himself, he realized he hadn’t just dreamt. The river Danu was about to cease flowing through humanity.

While his family was attempting to stop his actions, he anxiously mobilized the village, so he could embark on his nightlong journey as soon as possible. Trying to drown his worry of abandonment by the Danu in the feast his residents had prepared for him, his condition worsened, as the Namesake lost all feeling in his arm, while its organic matter kept deforming, shriveling up and beginning to rot.

Within the hour, the wagon was loaded and prepared. With two large jugs of water, a basket of various foodstuffs prepared by his family and the chest of which contents only he knew, he set out into the fields on his equine transport.

Following the stream of the ever weaker river, the Namesake required little navigation or vision on his journey, even as he crossed through thick patches of forest and the most uneven of pastures, the wagon suffered no wear aside from the mud on its wheels. Without having ever been there, he knew the way to Lia Fail like the back of what used to be his hand.

While he didn’t suffer from any pain, his arm continued to decay as he traveled. Having already begun to lose a second finger, the Namesake realized the prophecy that is his name would finally fulfill itself. The signs were piling up, pointing towards abandonment by the deities and depending on how things went from here his endeavor may not carry the fruit he wished.

As the night approached the turn of the day, the river of life had run dry, only the wet bed serving as a reminder of the power the Danu had allowed to run through the island.  
The Namesake was still able to navigate by this, but had also begun to rely on the vision granted by the full moon and stars. The cover of his wagon had begun to take considerable damage, barely even protecting the food the Namesake hadn't eaten yet anymore.

Taking a short break at a small river, for the horses to regain their power, the druid realized the stars vanishing one by one. A silver shroud was forming around the moon, slowly covering it, and fully consuming all its light by the end of the hour.

The last remnant of his right arm was now a stump on his shoulder, and a rotting pile of flesh and bone on the floor of his wagon, the stench of which was soon flushed out by petrichor, as heavy rain begun to fill the air.

While still riding his tattered wagon through the unnaturally pitch-black darkness and his supplies dwindling, the Namesake felt dawn approach with his makeshift torch slowly illuminating an opening in the forest that had been swallowing its light. He was only slightly behind schedule, and he could feel that Lia Fail should already be in view, swallowed by the red morning sun, but the cover of clouds and rain had not let any of its light pass through. 

Thunder had been roaring in the clouds for a while now, with a stray lightning giving off a flash of light within the clouds every now and then, emphasizing their impenetrable density.

As the Namesake was only a few steps from the edge of the forest, a blinding bolt of divine, blue lightning struck his destination, bathing the area in a faint shimmering light.  
Startled by the smite, his equine escort took off on their own, and smashing the wagon into the trees and throwing him into the back of his vehicle.

As the horses broke their restraints in their continued struggle, a series of loud cracks could be heard in the framework of the wagon, as the Namesake saw a dagger cut through the ripped canvas cover, barely missing him, hitting where his right arm would have been.

While he couldn’t make out their faces, his attackers talked in light male voices, mentioning how they got the wrong guy, and that they would have heard metal ringing with the strike for his arm if he was the one they were looking for.  
The Namesake was shocked by their apparent motive. He thought he was the only one who knew of the existence of his village’s artifact. Within the chest he was transporting resided Nuada’s Blade and Silver Arm, and the three young men were after it.

He inquired how they knew who he was, how they could dare to assume he had desecrated the limb of the child that granted him his name of prophecy and how they knew of his divine mission.  
Not bothered to answer, the unknown bandits thrust their daggers at the Namesake, barely missing once again, but striking the chest behind him and breaking it open. With a shockwave that threw the attackers away from the crashed wagon into the trees surrounding it, another lightning struck the druid himself and the casket, flinging open its damaged lid.

In the once more divine blue shimmer left by the bolt, the Namesake came to himself again. Finally realizing the hostile situation he found himself in, he grabbed the artifact and fit it to the stump on his right shoulder.

* * *

Multiple strikes of lightning struck his surrounding area at a quickening pace, moving away from him like a wave.

He couldn’t understand his own thoughts anymore, but none of that mattered. As he felt the power of Nuada’s Silver Arm surge through him, regaining the feeling of a complete, youthful body.

With his rage boiling over, he grabbed the shapeshifting blade of light with his regained arm, and leapt at his first target, still dazed and unable to defend himself, the young man could not even inhale to let out a scream before the bestial figure the druid had become drove the dagger into his heart.

As the druid began to sing a peaceful serenade, the other two quickly gathered their senses and readied for battle. Wanting to avenge his dead friend, one perked up into stance and charged at the beast. Unflinchingly, the unhinged, singing druid shaped his dagger into a bladed whip and impaled the mindless young man with a single, precise swing, pinning him to the tree he had just been resting against.

In an attempt to overpower the druid’s uncanny, calm song, the last attacker began to run away back into the forest, slamming his dagger into every hard surface he could, with the druid’s neverending whip hitting his targets mere moments after, leaving a trail of destruction in the blue glow, causing a cacophony of carnage, resonating with the druid’s serenade.

Ready to face his fate, the remaining young man turned around into a combat stance. The divine blue mist left behind by the lightning was enough to grant him the vision he needed to see well enough to fight the ungodly savage they had created.

The bloodstained whip, having bounced from tree to tree, surrounded the man in a dome of silver. The druid’s song echoed through the entire forest, making him unable to locate the avatar of wrath the druid had become.

With a sharp metallic ping, the druid’s silver fist hurled out of the dark forest into the center of the hunted’s buckler, shattering the small shield and sending him stumbling back a few steps. Barely able to dodge the next punch, he threw a stab right at the chest of the monster, who simply grabbed him by the wrist and threw the man over his head.

As he flew, trying to brace his best for impact, he noticed his legwear being torn up by the blades of the whip the druid was still holding on to. With a loud thud the young man hit the ground facing upwards.

Continuing to sing, upholding his menacing presence, the druid turned around slowly, as the bladed dome surrounding the two unraveled.  
Once more the ambusher attempted to thrust his dagger into the beast’s exposed chest, who in his unending focus shaped his whip into a swordbreaker, catching the stab, disarming the hunted.

As he began pleading for his life, covering his head, breaking down into tears and slowly curling up on the forest floor, the reinvigorated elder brought his serenade to an end, combined his blade and gauntlet, and sliced the young man in two halves with a swift slash as lightning struck him once more.

* * *

Unaware of his surroundings, Nuada woke up in a forest, bathed in blood, away from his wagon, but Lia Fail in sight. The seemingly unending storm had ended and left the island in a blue haze. Looking down his body, he noticed the bloodbath he had caused, and that he had defiled the artifact.

It was approaching noon, the sun nearing its' highest point in the sky. Trying to read the river Danu, Nuada was shocked. The river bed had dried up completely, but from all directions, as well as himself, near godly amounts of force was flowing into the river, creating violent whirlpools where the streams met.

Finally reaching his destination, he laid his new limb on the fated rock. Expecting no response, Nuada was shocked when the monolith began screeching at a deafening volume and tone. Through the screeching, he slowly began to hear a voice. His own voice.

"I know this is not how you planned your journey to end.  
"But this story was written in fate the day you were born."

The voice was the screeching of Lia Fail, emanating from his arm as a voice audible to only him.

"As my namesake, you bear the arm that I once used to allow us Children of the Danu to thrive.  
"I sacrificed everything just for my folk, and so did you.  
"Those bandits had only one thing in mind: Greed, wanting to steal the artifact for their own personal gain.  
"But you were ready to sacrifice everything you had just to fight for the survival of your folk, just like me."

Nuada began to back away from the boulder in shock.

"The prophecy of your name came true. It is however too late. You did well in fulfilling your purpose, but hostile conflict has spread across all people."

With another strike of lightning, the screeching came to a sudden halt, as Nuada sank to his knees. This was his purpose in life? Just to split humanity into conflict in an attempt to keep his fellows and himself alive? Or was it simply that he was too late?

As he was pondering these questions, Nuada heard a combination of words he never heard before, and rapid steps approaching him from behind. As he turned around to assess the situation, he felt the blunt force of a buckler impacting his head and a dagger thrust into his neck.

* * *

And so, the Namesake joined the captured spirits of Airgetlám's Blessing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that the SG-x00 runs on an unknown Sacrist, and that it might come to light now during XV what it truly is, however I have opted for taking the name Airgetlám literally, since the visual design of and the theme of sacrifice surrounding the gear do overlap with that of the original silver arm of Nuada Airgetlám.
> 
> Also thanks to Kirameki Sparkle and Solopy for beta reading and helping a lot with formatting and obscure grammar!


End file.
